Easter, April 8 2012 Easter Joy in the Garden
Well, the news just came out this week. Mary Magdalene won the Golden Halo of this year’s Lent Madness! Some of you may have heard me talking here and there about this somewhat silly and very enlightening game that many Christians were partaking in during Lent this year. It is a contest that Christians were playing all over the country and world—in fact, Hawaii had quite a strong part in this game and we almost had Queen Emma Kaleleokalani as our winner. But Mary Magdalene stole hearts and minds, and I am tempted to think we have a glimpse at why in the Easter gospel we hear today.
Mary comes to the garden tomb, her heart heavy, and the veil of tears and grief enshroud her. Jesus appears to her and the veil is lifted as she experiences that joyful encounter—that meeting with the Risen Lord. The one who knows her and yet whom she doesn’t know in the same way as she did before. He is shining now with a different light, has an even deeper wisdom, if it is possible. Or perhaps she just has realized how much she loves and misses him in the past couple of days? She wishes to cling to him, as we all do, but she cannot. He and she, and he and we, have so many things to do.
Yet so many of us yearn for that Oh So Close relationship with Jesus, don’t we? In fact, the old hymn “In the Garden,” considered one of the most popular gospel tunes in history, was based on this very passage in John.
As the story goes, in 1912, a music publisher asked Charles Austin Miles to compose a hymn. He asked for something that would be “sympathetic in tone, breathing tenderness in every line; one that would bring hope to the hopeless, rest to the weary, and downy pillows to dying beds.” And C. Austin Miles turned to his favorite chapter of the Bible, John 20, and imagined this scene. This scene, in which Mary and Jesus are just chatting in a garden, sharing their hearts. Many folks think this is about the composer’s personal relationship with Jesus, but it puts a whole new light on the otherwise (potentially) overly sappy song if you think about the immense sweetness of this moment that Mary spent with Jesus.
Serene Jones points out that, despite the abstract and theological properties of much of the Gospel according to John, this scene is immediate, intimate, tangible. It is a model of the kind of relationship many Christians long to have with the Risen Lord.
We long to have moments like these to walk side by side with our Savior, and sometimes we might even have glimpses of these. And gardens are places where we often connect with our Creator. “Oh heavenly Father, who has filled the world with beauty: Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works; that, rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness,” it says in the “Prayer for Joy in God’s Creation” from our Book of Common Prayer (p. 814).
And somehow we feel closer to Jesus in the garden, and in nature. Norman Wirzba, in his book Food and Faith, even talks about Jesus as a gardener, perhaps bringing to mind this moment when Mary Magdalene mistakes him for one. He says “it is no accident that in John’s gospel the site of Jesus’ resurrection is a garden.” We simply feel closer to Jesus in nature and we see, in the dying and rising again of creation, in the death of seeds to become beautiful flowering plants, the promise of what is also in store for us.
And perhaps it is no surprise that in the All Saints’ community, one of the signs of new life that we see around us today is in the Community Garden around the corner that many of us helped bless on Palm Sunday.
Those of you who were there will remember that we all took our palms and dipped them in holy water and splashed it liberally all around the garden, blessing it. Blessing it for Oxnard, and for this community. Blessing it to be a blessing. In these simple, humble shoots, we begin to see the spiritual shoots of growth in this parish, the promise not only of the life eternal but also the wonderful and more immediate work that is to come. I dare you not to see a little hope in the gregarious bean sprouts that seem to want to burst even out of the carpeted flooring outside the boxes! And just like those sprouts, we cannot feed the world, or even Oxnard, if we just remain in our boxes in the garden.
So remember, we can’t hang onto Jesus in this moment in the garden. We have something to do. We must go and share the gospel. We cannot stay there, but we must go, and spread the Word of Life, that it might seed and flower, not to die in our hearts, but to grow and give life to the world. Go and show that Christ is Risen! Alleluia and Happy Easter!
Mary comes to the garden tomb, her heart heavy, and the veil of tears and grief enshroud her. Jesus appears to her and the veil is lifted as she experiences that joyful encounter—that meeting with the Risen Lord. The one who knows her and yet whom she doesn’t know in the same way as she did before. He is shining now with a different light, has an even deeper wisdom, if it is possible. Or perhaps she just has realized how much she loves and misses him in the past couple of days? She wishes to cling to him, as we all do, but she cannot. He and she, and he and we, have so many things to do.
Yet so many of us yearn for that Oh So Close relationship with Jesus, don’t we? In fact, the old hymn “In the Garden,” considered one of the most popular gospel tunes in history, was based on this very passage in John.
As the story goes, in 1912, a music publisher asked Charles Austin Miles to compose a hymn. He asked for something that would be “sympathetic in tone, breathing tenderness in every line; one that would bring hope to the hopeless, rest to the weary, and downy pillows to dying beds.” And C. Austin Miles turned to his favorite chapter of the Bible, John 20, and imagined this scene. This scene, in which Mary and Jesus are just chatting in a garden, sharing their hearts. Many folks think this is about the composer’s personal relationship with Jesus, but it puts a whole new light on the otherwise (potentially) overly sappy song if you think about the immense sweetness of this moment that Mary spent with Jesus.
Serene Jones points out that, despite the abstract and theological properties of much of the Gospel according to John, this scene is immediate, intimate, tangible. It is a model of the kind of relationship many Christians long to have with the Risen Lord.
We long to have moments like these to walk side by side with our Savior, and sometimes we might even have glimpses of these. And gardens are places where we often connect with our Creator. “Oh heavenly Father, who has filled the world with beauty: Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works; that, rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness,” it says in the “Prayer for Joy in God’s Creation” from our Book of Common Prayer (p. 814).
And somehow we feel closer to Jesus in the garden, and in nature. Norman Wirzba, in his book Food and Faith, even talks about Jesus as a gardener, perhaps bringing to mind this moment when Mary Magdalene mistakes him for one. He says “it is no accident that in John’s gospel the site of Jesus’ resurrection is a garden.” We simply feel closer to Jesus in nature and we see, in the dying and rising again of creation, in the death of seeds to become beautiful flowering plants, the promise of what is also in store for us.
And perhaps it is no surprise that in the All Saints’ community, one of the signs of new life that we see around us today is in the Community Garden around the corner that many of us helped bless on Palm Sunday.
Those of you who were there will remember that we all took our palms and dipped them in holy water and splashed it liberally all around the garden, blessing it. Blessing it for Oxnard, and for this community. Blessing it to be a blessing. In these simple, humble shoots, we begin to see the spiritual shoots of growth in this parish, the promise not only of the life eternal but also the wonderful and more immediate work that is to come. I dare you not to see a little hope in the gregarious bean sprouts that seem to want to burst even out of the carpeted flooring outside the boxes! And just like those sprouts, we cannot feed the world, or even Oxnard, if we just remain in our boxes in the garden.
So remember, we can’t hang onto Jesus in this moment in the garden. We have something to do. We must go and share the gospel. We cannot stay there, but we must go, and spread the Word of Life, that it might seed and flower, not to die in our hearts, but to grow and give life to the world. Go and show that Christ is Risen! Alleluia and Happy Easter!
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